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George Bizos LRC Oral History Project George Bizos LRC Oral History Project Interview 1: 4th December 2007 Interview 2: 28th July 2008 Interview 3: 3rd August 2008 Interview One: Int George, thank you very much for your time. GB It’s my pleasure. Int I wondered whether we could start by you telling us a little bit about your early childhood and your background and what brought you to the legal profession, so your formative influences. GB Yes…well, Nadine Gordimer put it rather well, that the gales of war brought me to South Africa. The late thirties were turbulent times in Greece. My father was an elected mayor of the village, but in 1936 a dictatorship was established that he was forced to resign. My family were…my grandfather in particular who lost his first son in the First World War, and George (Bizos), my grandfather, insisted that I shouldn’t adopt…shouldn’t christen his name of his lost son. We were an anti-tyrannical family who didn’t take kindly to dictators. My father although he was defrocked was nevertheless considered the leader of the village, and when Greece fell to the Germans in April 1941, seven of the aligned troops from New Zealand, Australia and the UK, took refuge in the bushes outside our village. My father decided that he would help them get out of Nazi occupied Greece and go to Crete without knowing that Crete was busy falling to the German paratroopers. We set off until the third day we were picked up by the British navy, HMS Kimberley, we were told that Crete was falling; we were taken to Alexandria in Egypt. I was put in an orphanage. My father was put into a camp with 4000 odd other Greek refugees, and Egypt was in danger from the Italians who were in Libya at the time and doing quite well against the allies. And the Middle East command as a sort of thank you to my father included him in a group who…of parents who had children to get them out of the refugee camp and we got a first class passage on the Isle de France, the second biggest liner at the time, and we were brought to Durban. From Durban we were brought to Johannesburg. Didn’t go to school for two and a half years. But I was…my father’s picture and mine were in the Sunday Times and a young Wits graduate teacher, Cecilia Feinstein, recognised, two and a half years after the photograph appeared, set out and raised hell with the people that I was working for that they can’t…it was not a place for a boy like me to be in. she took me to her school… 1 Int How old were you, George, at the time? GB 13. By the time she found me I was already fifteen and a half. I had passed standard 6 equivalent in Greece at the age of 13, but I had to start again, at standard 6, so I matriculated when I was almost 20. And she…it was a junior high school but she became engaged to be married and she arranged for me to go to Athlone High, a particularly good school at that time. And I defied my father by not doing medicine, which was his…but I went to Wits. It was a very special time in 1948. Those of us who were too young to fight but old enough to understand what the war was about, believed that it was to end all wars, and that fundamental human rights were being universally applied, as decreed by the United Nations. And here right slap bang in the middle of it all, the Nationalists came into power. The student body was a mature body…because many of the students had fought in the war, interrupted their studies and they were the leaders. Fellows like George Clayton, John Coaker, and a number of others, who were insulted by this Nationalist Party victory because they were considered Nazi supporters. And I could identify with the anger that was expressed by the senior students and…there were a sprinkling of black students like Nelson Mandela…(Ismail) Meer, Nthano Motlana, and a number of others, a very small group. They were all youth leaguers, the Africans that is, and I could identify with their cause, we became friendly with Nelson (Mandela) and others. And… Int This was at university, at Wits? GB At Wits. And then I became very friendly with Duma Nokwe, who eventually became the first African advocate at the Bar. And we were friends at the university, we shared chambers illegally from 1956 onwards. With the Bar council giving us some support. The arch conservatives at the Bar threatening to report (Duma) Nokwe to the Group Areas and Urban Areas inspectors, but it never came to pass. He was then arrested in a treason trial in the December ’56 and I did quite a lot of work for (Nelson) Mandela and (Oliver) Tambo with Godfrey Pitje, Douglas Mokhele. And the present treasurer of the ANC, Msimang. Int I was wondering whether I could take you back a little bit, George. You know when you were growing up in Greece and…when you left, were you separated from other members of your family? GB Yes, of course. I had 2 brothers and a sister… Int And your mother? 2 GB And my mother, and my grandparents. My grandparents and my mother who were very concerned about my joining my father, but I was quite precocious and I insisted quite a lot and I threatened to swim behind the boat if they didn’t take me with them. And I was separated from my mother, the family, for many years. Int Many years? GB Many years. I first saw my mother in 1962 that was 21 years after I left, when she came to South Africa. I didn’t have a travel document, I didn’t have a passport and I couldn’t really confide in her that I…that there was a file on me and this is why I couldn’t…I was refused citizenship. So…and I started doing political trials almost immediately after I came to the Bar. Int I was wondering why political trials in particular? What attracted you to this type of lawyering? GB You know you don’t really choose. Sometimes things are chosen for you. I mean, I was friendly with Joe Slovo, Ruth First…Ruth (First) while she was an activist, she was a reporter on the New Age. She was in touch with people that got into trouble. She found it easier to ask me to do it and to ask Joe (Slovo) who did his fair share, but…obviously, Ruth (First) found it easier to ask me to do the odd trial, some of which were done without any payment. You know, I thought…they were very involved both of them in politics pillow talk. (laughs) Int What did your father think about all this, George, about you going to Wits? I mean, I know you said, he wanted you to do medicine and you did law, so you defied him (laughs). I was wondering what he thought of your political interest? GB Well, what happened was that I was elected on the SRC in my second year of study. And we objected strongly to the quota system to medical school, and the university authorities in fact…the memorandum written by Professor McCrown, who actually became deputy vice chancellor, said that we were a bunch of communists who really wanted to destroy the university. And the matter was raised by (D.F.) Malan in parliament who said that he was informed that there were a group of leftists at Wits who were making all this trouble that was being reported in the papers, but he was sure that reasonable students would soon kick us out of the Students Representative Council…would kick out these leftists. And the next day I made a speech in the Great Hall, and didn’t have mikes but I was told that I hit a high C (laughter) and said, let me tell the Prime Minister Dr Malan, that wanting equal treatment with my fellow students makes me a leftist, I’m proud to be one. The next day the headline, front page of the Transvaal Internationalist Party newspaper, had a headline, ‘links gesind en trots daaroop’. Left is still proud. And my father could hardly read English, certainly not Afrikaans, but members of the Greek community took this newspaper to 3 my father, and told him that I was bringing the Greek community into disrepute, and would he see to it that I was reigned in. He just reported to me. (laughter) Int Why do you think that was? GB He was a democrat to the core. Int Sounds like it. GB And he didn’t tell me…and in fact throughout my life, neither from my father, nor my mother, nor my wife, nor my children, had I ever had a caution that I must stop or I must be careful. I had their full support. Int That’s fantastic. So you took on political trials, could you tell me about prior to joining the LRC what were some of the significant cases you took on, prior to joining the LRC? GB Yes…well, there were lots of cases in the fifties which were significant in their time. Because South Africa was not for whites, at any rate, a totalitarian state.
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